Asteroid Mining Jake Pan

What are Asteroids? Asteroids are chunks of rock floating in space: Left over from the formation of our solar system Created when two larger objects collided

Why would l want to mine them? Asteroids contain: Metals like iron can be used for construction Rare metals like platinum Water for astronauts to drink

Size A few meters across 1000 kilometers across Irregular shapes A scale image of several different asteroids. The largest, 4 Vesta, has an average diameter of 525 km. The smallest, Itokawa (barely visible in this image), is an ellipsoid with a length of 630 m and a width of 250 m.

Where are located the asteroids? The planets' orbits around the Sun are represented by elliptical blue lines, and asteroids are represented by dots. Most of the asteroids are clustered in the "main belt" (white dots), but there are other smaller groups of asteroids.

Which asteroids to mine? Information from: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

JPL Database Information about their elliptical orbits around the sun.  Semi-major axis: Earth’s average distance from the sun (measured in astronomical units)(AU)  Perihelion: closest distance to the sun  Aphelion: farthest distance from the sun

Physical Information  C-type: most common type clay and rocks and water 75%  S-type: iron, stony materials, platinum 17%  M-type: metallic, nickel, iron

My Plan l would mine for asteroids S-type, that are near Earth for platinum Bring platinum back to Earth and sell it. Land on large asteroids Check the shape Check the spinning speed Check how soon will be the next approach and distance to Earth Check how much material my spacecraft could bring back from an asteroid in one trip Would l have to plan multiple trips back and forth to the same asteroid?

The JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine : list of asteroids

JPL Small Body Database Browser : Data about my asteroid Ceres  Orbital elements

Physical parameters

When it was discovered

Bibliography NASA. (n.d.). Near Earth Object Program - Introduction & Overview. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from Wikipedia contributors. (2013, February 25). Asteroid Spectral Types. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from Amos, J. (2010, June 14). Hayabusa asteroid-sample capsule recovered in Outback. Retrieved July 13, 2013, from Planetary Resources. (n.d.). Asteroid Overview. Retrieved July 13, 2013, from NASA Solar System Exploration. (n.d.). Asteroids - Overview. Retrieved July 13, 2013, from Clavi, W. and Harrington, J.D. (2013, July 25). NASA's WISE Finds Mysterious Centaurs May Be Comets. Retrieved August 9, 2013, from Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (n.d.). JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine. Retrieved August 20, 2013, from Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (n.d.). JPL Small-Body Database Browser. Retrieved August 20, 2013, from The Future of Asteroid Mining Video